Little did I know ten years ago how much a part of my life grocery shopping would become. When you’re responsible to feed people, not just yourself, you need food. And so began my weekly jaunts to the grocery store. Sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes I’m maneuvering a long cart with the little toy car at the front plus holding Liam on my hip and trying hard to juggle a list, coupons, and grabbing items off the shelf without running into anyone. Sometimes it’s rushed, sometimes we meander along. Always we know we’re coming back.
I mostly shop at Kroger. They seem to be the only store with consistent low prices who also double coupons. But when I just need a few items I run to Food Lion because it’s much closer and whenever Harris Teeter doubles or triples coupons for a few days I stop there. If I never had to think about cost, I would shop at Harris Teeter all the time without a doubt. The store is squeaky clean, well lit and attractively laid out. The produce is always perfect.
When Kelvin and Beth were coming over to help on our deck she offered to bring some food so I asked her to please bring cantaloupe. She said she is horrible at choosing good produce so I suggested she stop at Harris Teeter. You don’t have to choose, just grab one and it will be good.
About 10:45 in walked Beth with a melon. It looked fine until we opened it. Mushy. Over ripe. Ewww. I called the manager and told her how disappointed I was and how I had purposely told my sister to stop there because I can always trust their produce. After apologies and finding out where we live (20-25 minutes away) she offered to bring another one out to the house. Well, I said a bit dubious, we were planning to eat lunch early, like 11:30. “I’ll leave as soon as I get off the phone,” she said. “Do you mind if I cut one open to make sure it’s ok before I bring it?”
Oh, not a problem. Thirty-five minutes later a manager rang the doorbell. He brought a lovely cantaloupe cut in half, plus additional slices plus two cartons of strawberries and many apologies for the inconvenience. “We cut five before we found a good one and ended up pulling the rest off the shelf. There’s just too much rain in FL right now to produce good melons.” I was thoroughly impressed.
When my parents started their homemade jam business, it didn’t take long to see the importance of a satisfied customer. “One happy customer will tell two or three people about your product. An unhappy one will tell ten,” they were told.
Yesterday I stopped at Whole Foods to see about options to build Liam’s immune system. The gentleman took me to the liquid vitamin section and I kept looking over the four selections trying to see some huge benefit in one over the other. “Do you know how they taste and do they have iron in them?” I asked. I tried giving Liam liquid iron when he was low at nine months and it was a lost cause. There is no hiding that flavor. We looked. No iron.
“Now you do know we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee so if he doesn’t like it, you can bring it back and we’ll refund your money,” he went on to say. I thought that was amazing. An open bottle? No ability to re-sell? That is customer service. And as I deliberated a little longer he said, “You know, if you want to try a bottle today, I’ll give it to you as a sample.” I could hardly believe my ears! A $20 + bottle sample? Unheard of but true. And so I happily had them order a liquid omega 3 6 9 complex and went to find goat milk yogurt. As I was checking out with a very friendly cashier who actually looked me in the eye more then a passing glance, asked about my welfare with animation, and continued to make conversation with the boys, the lady who spoke with me about the differences in goat milk and rice milk came back to make sure I’d found the yogurt.
Now that is customer support! Food Lion and Kroger take note!
